Fairfield Horseshoe Walk

In good weather the Fairfield hoseshoe is one of the most beautiful walking routes in the Lake District, unfortunately for us the weather on this occasion, for the most part was anything but good.

Length : 11.4 miles
Terrain: Tracks, paths, some steep ascent and descent,
Refreshments: Nothing en route but plenty of places in Ambleside and Rydal.
Things to look out for: Rydal Mount, Rydal Church, the views from the top.
Start/finish: Carpark near Rydal
Kit Taken: O/R rucksack, Aku Boots,X-socks airforce 1, X-bionic baselayer pants,  Montane Terra Convert Pant, Berghaus Smoulder Hoodie, Rab Super Dru Jacket, Montain Air Pant, First Aid Kit, Leatherman, Buff, Berghaus Tech T, 2 bottles of water, Iphone, Timex Expedition watch, Petzl Tikka Plus 2,  Garmin GPS 60 and paper maps.

Route

It started off ok, unusually warm and slightly muggy, but we could see the mist on the tops, we left the car park and headed up the road past Rydal Church and Rydal Mount, as we headed up Nab Scar we were warm in just our t-shirts.

As we worked our way up over Lord Crag, the path became slightly steeper and a little bit wetter and before we reached the summit of Heron Pike we were in amongst thick damp mist and could’t see much in front of us.

We continued following the cairns along the path up and over Great Rigg before crossing the wide open path to Fairfield, although we went a little  bit wrong here as we were trying to find the summit cairn and missed it due to the mist so ended up having lunch on Cofa Pike then had to re trace our steps in order to find the correct path across to Hart Crag.

The weather started getting a little worse, the wind got up and it started to rain a bit heavier, making the path underfoot quite slippy and the already boggy places that bit boggier.

From Hart Crag we descended following the  clear path along the top of the ridge and sometimes  alongside the wall and trying to avoid the really boggy bits, as we made our way under Dove Crag and over both High and Low Pike the weather started to dry up and we got a little bit of a view as the sun started to set.

We the followed the path through Low Sweden Bridge and Nook End Farm before reaching the road at the bottom of “the Struggle” from here we followed the path along the road back to where we had left the car, by now it was dark so it gave me a good chance to test out my newish Petzl headlight for something other than reading the gas meter.

Gallery (click to enlarge)